coming to an end. And by the time he reached Bahrain
in November 2020 he’d made peace with that. It was
the 15th race on the schedule; only two would follow it.
Grosjean just wanted to go out on a high.
“A MOMENT COMES WHERE YOU
think you’re going to die,” says Grosjean, a year removed
from the crash that nearly took his life. “I thought that
was it.” Death and F1 are well acquainted. Aryton Senna,
the Brazilian maestro that many on the grid today point
to as their favorite driver, died in 1994 when his car f lew
off the track at the San Marino Grand Prix and hit a
concrete wall at 145 mph, just a day after another driver
died during qualifying.
Though a series of safety efforts were implemented
following Senna’s death, the threat still looms. In 2015,
25-year-old Jules Bianchi was killed in a crash in Japan,
and five years later, Anthoine Hubert—a 22-year-old
F2 driver with a top-circuit future—died after a crash
in Belgium.
Grosjean’s race in Bahrain looked promising through
the first three corners. Starting 19th, he gained two
positions coming out of the first, weaving through
traff ic as he shot down the track, and exited turn three
into the straightaway with a chance to pick up a few
more. “I normally always have bad race starts, and
for once I had a good one,” Grosjean remembers. “I
wish I hadn’t.”
One car pulled to the left, veering wide as sparks
from the braking cars scattered across the night air.
Two more blocked his path in front, and a third, driven
by Magnussen, occupied the spot ahead to the right.
Grosjean checked his mirrors and then checked again
to make sure he was clear—there was no one there—and
then pushed his car wide right at 150 mph to peel past
those in front. He was faster than they were. He had a
good line. He was in the clear.
“Until I saw the footage the next day, I didn’t know
what happened,” Grosjean says. “I didn’t know if my
suspension broke, or I hit a bump, or I spun on my own
or had contact.”
Daniil Kvyat’s car was hidden in Grosjean’s blind spot.
As the Frenchman tried to shoot through the gap ahead,
his back right tire clipped Kvyat’s front left, sending
Grosjean careening toward the barrier. He hit the wall
going 119 mph, carrying more than 67 Gs. His car split
in half on impact and set off a massive explosion.
“When you see an incident of a certain magnitude,
there is an eerie silence that falls on the track,” Buxton
says. “You only feel it on very, very rare occasions, and
it’s when an accident is of such magnitude that every-
body literally holds their breath.”
Grosjean’s fire suit was built to withstand the blaze
for 12 seconds. That day, he sat in his shattered, melting
car for 28 seconds, lodged between two sheets of twisted
metal as the f lames swallowed him.
“You cannot get lucky with f ire,” says Guenther Steiner,
the team principal at Haas. “I was just conscious that
if he doesn’t come out in the next 20 seconds, he’s not
coming out.”
For half a minute, drivers and fans watched, pray-
ing for something to give them hope. The seconds that
passed felt like hours, and the plume of smoke and f lames
seemed to only grow more intense. It seemed like the
end. But some switch f lipped in Grosjean’s mind; today
was not the day he’d die. He gave one final push, forc-
ing himself up and out of the car just before the f lames
engulfed the cockpit.
“How did he jump out?” another driver, Carlos Sainz,SPORTS ILLUSTRATED Q SI.COM 80THE YEAR IN MEDIABACK FROM
THE BRINK
Grosjean’s season-ending
crash was horrific, but
he emerged with only a
sprained ankle and severe
burns to his left hand.HA
MAD (^) I
(^) MO
HA
MM
ED
/P
OO
L/A
FP
/GE
TT
Y (^) IM
AG
ES